March is Women's History Month - Celebrate Women of
Achievement and Herstory - Episode #16 in the special
History Month 2000 observance series
By Irene Stuber who is solely responsible for its content
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Kersten Hesselgren (b. 04-01-1872), Swedish sociologist,
was the first woman elected to *both* houses of the Swedish
Riksdag.
She was one of Sweden's delegates to the League of Nations
where in 1931 when she introduced the subject of the legal status of
women in the League of Nations. "(It) caused no little amusement
among the men," she said.
She prevailed, however, and the committee studied such
things as women's right to vote, education, access to professions and
well as the state of a married woman's right to their earnings, a
separate name, ability to sign contracts.
The study made, the men did nothing to implement it.
^ W ^ O^ A ^
"It is all well for us to talk about raising the status of
women; but so many of them live in homes so ill-equipped, kitchens
so meagerly planned and furnished, that it is practically impossible
for them to find time or energy to take any sort of part in public or
community life .... if we want the women of the world to take an
active part in the affairs of the world and of their communities, we
must do more than give them equal status with men and urge them
on to active public life -- we must make it possible for them to
accept their responsibilities as citizens, to freely, and without
anxiety or strain, take their place with men in order to accomplish,
jointly, with the men of the world, those great tasks that must be
fulfilled if thinking and living on this earth are to transcend to any
degree at all the thinking and living it has known so far!"
These words were spoken in 1946 by Bodil Begtrup (born 11-
12-1903), Danish delegate to United Nations and chair of the UN
Status of Women subcommission. It was under her urging that the
first international statement for the Human Rights of Women was
adopted in 1946.
Instead of merely writing the usual report coached in vague
terms, Begtrup's subcommission prepared a 2,000 word, *detailed*
statement.
The report was revised to a few summarizing paragraphs
because the male delegates on the Human Rights Commission (nine
men and Eleanor Roosevelt) believed the call for rights for women
*infringed on the sovereign rights of individual countries.*
ER disagreed and with the pressure she and Begtrup exerted,
the report was published in its entirety.
Among the rights the report demanded were an office on
women's affairs and an international women's conference, equal
rights with men in all nations and in all fields including civil,
education, economics, political and social, the abolition of
prostitution, and the right to divorce.
The report also referred to "women as human beings,"
something some nations disagreed with on religious grounds.
Begtrup said of the progress expected on the report, "It will
move slowly. See me in a thousand years."
^ W ^ O^ A ^
Since then, there have been four UN World Conferences on
Women the last was held in 1995 in Beijing, China, at which Sec.
General Boutros Boutros-Ghali SENT a statement that contained the
line:
"There is a deplorable trend towards the organized humiliation
of women."
Boutros-Boutros, however, only talked but did not walk the
walk about women's human rights.
Some facts from the United Nations about women
worldwide:
*Women account for half the food production in developing
countries.
In some African countries, they have to walk 10 kilometers
or more to fetch water and fuel.
* Much of the soil conservation in East Africa over the past
decade as been carried out by women (since they do the farming and
work).
* In India, women provide 75% of the labor for
transplanting and weeding rice, 60% for harvesting, and 33% for
threshing.
* In Kenya, men sit in groups under the shade trees so they
can protect their women working in the fields from lions. That there
are no lions in that part of Kenya is unimportant.
* Women constitute half the world's population, perform
nearly two-thirds of its work hours, receive one-tenth of the world's
income, and own less than one-hundredth of the world's property.
^ W ^ O^ A ^
When Madeline Albright left her post as U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations to become President Bill Clinton's Secretary
of State, she became a world power-broker only second to the U.S.
president himself.
Boutros-Boutros got the boot and the new Secretary-General
Kofi Annan was named. Madeline Albright was instrumental in the
choice.
Annan showed his strong feminist leanings almost
immediately by appointed Mary Robinson (who was then president
of Ireland) as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights. The position is only one tier below the Secretary General.
MR is noted for her blistering condemnation of developed
countries for ignoring the genocide and starvation in Somalia and for
her opinion that internal human rights violations are not protected by
the sovereignty of a nation.
She is firmly committed to taking up the struggle against
widespread gender discrimination as a matter of priority. Her Office
is seeking to strengthen the human rights of women and integrate
them into the broader human rights framework.
Opposition to her reforms by repressive nations such as
some African nations as well as most in the Arabic world has been
unrelenting. At times it reached nit-picking lengths that prevented
her from moving the commission offices into an area with parking!
She finally won that battle and she is expected to win others
although, she says, ""I thought when I asked something be done, it
actually would be done; I had no idea (of the complex internal
politics)."
She is heading a revolution to bring human and women's
rights to the forefront. Thousands of years of opposition by the
powerful has only been dented thus far - BUT IT HAS BEEN
DENTED!
Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, another
woman who speaks her mind, had soundly lashed out at the Vatican
and Muslim fundamentalists (and other religions) for their
opposition to abortion rights and sex education in a 1994
conference. Her side won!
In January 1998, she was named head of the World Health
Organization, strongly supported by the United States administration
of Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright.
"We created our own little women's caucus (in the United
Nations) and that terrified everybody. There were those from larger
countries who complained about the fact that the ambassador from
Liechtenstein had unfair access to the American ambassador, and I
said there clearly was an easy way to rectify that. (That is, appoint
more female ambassadors)."
-- Madeleine Albright
In just a few years, after thousands of years of talk-talk, a
handful of women working within the political structures of their
nations to earn leadership positions are now redrawing the map of
what is important to governments worldwide.
"Health, population and the environment -- these are not, as some
might suggest, peripheral issues. They are central. They relate
directly to the long-term security and well-being of our people and
of all people. They will become increasingly important as we enter
the 21st century."
-- Madeleine Albright
Harlem Gro Brundtland, Mary Robinson, and Madeline
Albright are powerful but they need help. It's time to get involved in
the politics of your nation where things get done.
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